Tribune to Spin Off Newspaper Business
Source: Bloomberg News
Tribune Co. (TRBAA), publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, plans to spin off its newspapers into a separate business, letting the company focus on its more lucrative local television stations.
The proposal, announced today, would create a newspaper company called Tribune Publishing Co. and a TV business named Tribune Co. with 42 stations in 33 markets, mimicking the breakup of News Corp. in June. The move follows Tribune’s $2.73 billion deal to buy 19 stations this month from Local TV Holdings LLC in the industry’s biggest transaction in six years.
In spinning off the newspaper business, Tribune is backing away from seeking an immediate bidder for the operation. The company, which emerged from bankruptcy at the end of 2012, had hired advisers to evaluate interest from buyers, according to people familiar with the process. Tribune’s publishing group was valued at about $623 million in its bankruptcy filings last year, $300 million lower than a January 2011 estimate.
“Publishing is declining -- you can see it in the numbers,” said Matt Kaplan, an analyst at Imperial Capital LLC in Los Angeles. Though newspapers are helping shore up revenue by charging for Web access, they haven’t held up as well as television stations in the Internet era, he said. “People still watch local TV for news.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/tribune-plans-to-spin-off-its-publishing-business.html
Other Tribune papers:
- Daily Press (Newport News, VA)
- Hartford Courant
- The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
- Orlando Sentinel
- Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
- The Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, VA)
Thankfully, these papers as well as the Chicago Trib and LA Times are for now out of reach of the Koch Bros.
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